I'm Here
by MyOwnLittleWorld
Summary: During a trip to Hogsmeade, Harry battles memories he'd like to forget, but he has a little help. HPGW. Companion to Finding the Courage. Complete
1. Chapter One

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, propaganda, etc.  
  
A/N: I finally decided to do a bit of a companion story to Finding the Courage, which you may want to read first. I'm not sure how long it will be, but most likely longer than FtC to give some room for character development. I'll be posting fairly quickly I think, at least once a week.  
  
Harry scratched his quill against his parchment in a subdued way, trying to force himself to finish his potions essay. He squinted through the dim light of the dying fire and copied a few paragraphs out of his notes, too tired to try to be original. With a sigh of relief from finishing, he finally set down his parchment and settled more deeply into the comfort of the chair. He had just closed his eyes when he felt a pair of warm hands over his eyes. His body tensed as he swiftly grasped his wand and blindly pointed it at the hands.  
  
"Guess who," a familiar voice said, and he felt his body relax.  
  
"Ginny, don't scare me like that," he said, smiling slightly as the mischievous face of his 'attacker' was revealed.  
  
"Constant vigilance, Harry, constant vigilance," she laughed, jumping over the back of the couch and plopping herself down next to him. Harry felt himself shivering at the close proximity of her, and he could still feel a slight tingle where her hands had left his face moments before.  
  
Harry couldn't quite pinpoint the time when he had started liking Ginny Weasley. perhaps it had just barely started when she had snapped at him that "he wasn't the only one" who had been possessed by Voldemort, and he had felt something, a feeling that he wasn't quite as alone as he had thought. He had been too infatuated with Cho back then to actually think of her as any more than another member of the D.A. or just Ron's little sister, but nevertheless there was something different between them which he couldn't quite place. A sort of bond, which had slowly turned into friendship over the summer. Now there was no question about it. He wanted to be more than friends.  
  
"What are you doing up anyway?" he asked, more to pull himself out of his dazed musings than anything.  
  
"I dunno, couldn't sleep I guess," she said. "What about you?"  
  
"Potions. Don't know how Ron finished his, probably found some way to copy off Hermione's."  
  
"Speaking of those two, has either of them made a move yet?" Ginny asked, eyes laughing.  
  
"Yes, actually, Ron's planning on asking her to Hogsmeade." Ginny finally burst into giggles. "Never. thought he'd be the one," she said, gasping for breath. "But I suppose he couldn't have watched her with those puppy dog eyes forever without doing something."  
  
Harry nodded, not wanting her to know that he hadn't known they liked each other until Ron had told him.  
  
"Who are you planning on going with? Dean?" Harry couldn't help but ask, feeling a small twinge of jealousy in his stomach.  
  
"Dean? What gave you that idea?" Ginny asked, looking incredulous.  
  
"Last year. on the train."  
  
"You didn't actually think I meant it did you?" Ginny said, grinning as she twirled a piece of flaming hair around her forefinger.  
  
"Well, yes, but why."  
  
"I just like seeing the look Ron always gets when he thinks I'm dating someone. Unless it's you, of course, he's been throwing these massively obvious hints all summer. 'You know, Ginny, Harry's not always that grouchy.' 'Did you know, Ginny, that Harry can beat Dean at chess?' 'Maybe, Ginny, you need someone in your life who has the same talents as you, like Quidditch.'" Ginny rolled her eyes. "It's starting to get a bit old."  
  
Harry couldn't help the look of amazement that crossed his face. "Ron wants you to date me?" he asked. He had always thought Ron would be insanely angry if he ever caught him with Ginny.  
  
"Apparently so."  
  
"Oh."  
  
An awkward silence filled the room as Harry tried to think of a way to ask her something.  
  
"We could, you know, go together as friends if you wanted," he tried. "It would make Ron happy, you know,' he added.  
  
Ginny smiled. "Much as I hate to do anything that would make my idiot brother pleased, I'd probably have more fun than walking around Hogsmeade alone."  
  
Harry let out the breath that was hitched in his throat. "Great, I'll meet you outside the castle after practice then?"  
  
"Sounds good to me."  
  
They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes until Ginny felt Harry's head loll onto her shoulder. She carefully reached over with her free hand and touched the hair she'd wanted to touch since her first year in Hogwarts. Smiling as he began to snore softly, she carefully kissed the top of his head, looking around nervously to make sure nobody had seen her.  
  
"See you tomorrow, then."  
  
More A/N: Okay, I know this doesn't quite fit in time-wise with FtC, but pretend that after Ron asks Hermione they both go up to their dorms and Harry comes down to finish his essay. Feedback please! 


	2. Chapter Two

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, propaganda, etc.  
  
A/N: I tried to get this on .html, but no-can-do. Help, please?  
  
Ginny breezed through Quidditch with a goofy grin on her face, only stopping from her fantasies to tease Ron about his upcoming date with Hermione. She shouldn't really be one to tease about dates, she supposed, but it was too hard to resist. Quidditch just wasn't doing much to keep her mind occupied either; the wind buffeted her tiny form around to achieve anything, and nobody else seemed very enthused.  
  
"All right, I can see that no one's quite into Quidditch today, but we'll be making this time up! I want you all here at 6 A.M. sharp!" Angelina's sharp voice sounded through the wind. Ginny winced; she had never been an early-morning person, and 6:00 was way too soon to abandon her bed.  
  
After feeling her toes touch the ground, Ginny lightly hopped off her broom and dashed towards the changing room, calling to Harry that she'd meet him in fifteen minutes. Once inside, she grabbed her duffel bag and frantically began applying Muggle make-up. She had never been very great at applying it, but she was worse when she tried to use her wand. She had just poked herself in the eye with her mascara bottle when Katie Bell came in.  
  
"Makeup troubles?" Katie asked, taking in Ginny's appearance. Before Ginny could confirm her comment, Katie had swiftly pulled out her wand and removed the mess she had made on her face. She then began taking out her accessories and applying them faster than Ginny could blink. Ginny was just wondering if she was perhaps applying them TOO fast when Katie said "done" in a satisfied voice. Ginny inspected herself in the mirror-true, it wasn't the most drastic change in the world, but she didn't look quite so pale and her eyelashes did look a bit longer. She changed from her Quidditch robes into a pair of jeans and a shirt under her school robes, and gave Katie a quick hug.  
  
"Good luck with Harry," she said, smiling.  
  
"How did you know?"  
  
"I guess you're pretty blind about how much he likes you, huh?"  
  
Ginny chose not to answer, and instead gave her a confused glance and dashed towards Hogwarts. Harry was waiting for her, looking nervously at his watch.  
  
"Hi!" she said breathlessly. "Sorry I took so long, but-"  
  
"Sorry Ginny, but I think we've missed the carriage. It left at exactly 1:30."  
  
Ginny felt a lead weight in her stomach. "I'm so sorry, I should have."  
  
Seeing the crestfallen look on her face, Harry decided he'd have to show her one of his best-kept secrets.  
  
"There's another way to get there, though. C'mon, I'll show you." Harry led her upstairs to the Gryffindor Common room and disappeared into the Boys' Dormitory, returning a second later with a worn but blank piece of parchment clutched in his hand. Ginny followed him back out of the Common Room and into another with a statue of a bent-over witch.  
  
"I solemnly swear I am up to no good," Harry said quietly, tapping the parchment. Lines sprawled across it, forming a complete map of Hogwarts and the words 'The Marauder's Map.' Looking closer, Ginny noticed tiny- labeled dots moving through the castle.  
  
"Wow," Ginny breathed. "That's the most amazing map I've ever seen."  
  
"Your brothers were actually the ones who gave it to me, but my dad, Sirius, Pettigrew, and Professor Lupin made it." Ginny noticed the way he tried to keep his voice neutral at the mention of Sirius, and he nearly would have succeeded if his voice hadn't cracked on the second-to-last word.  
  
"Must've been tough for the twins to give it up," Ginny said, thinking of how much the map had probably meant to them.  
  
"Yeah," said Harry. "If they'd never given it to me we'd probably still think Peter was Ron's innocent rat."  
  
She decided to try to steer the subject away from where it was headed.  
  
"So, how's this going to help us get to Hogsmead anyways?" she asked, tearing her eyes away from the map.  
  
"Watch and learn," he smiled. He tapped the statue of the witch on the hump and whispered 'dissendium'. Just as he said it, they heard voices coming towards them. Harry looked at the map, where two dots labeled 'Filch' and 'Snape' were heading towards the ones with the names 'Ginny' and 'Harry.' The witch's hump opened into a passage, and the two of them disappeared inside. The passage closed a split second before Filch and Snape entered the room.  
  
Harry felt himself collide with Ginny as they slid down the stone passage- it was really only built for one person at a time. With a jolt they finally hit bottom, Ginny stumbling and falling as he hit her with the domino effect.  
  
"Lumos," he said as his wand tip ignited.  
  
"Well that was fun," Ginny said, brushing dirt off of her robes as Harry pulled her to her feet. "Where are we though?"  
  
"Secret way to get to Honeydukes. Great, isn't it?"  
  
"Yes, this is amazing! I wonder who built it... anyways. Shall we go?" Ginny stopped herself from ranting. Harry seemed to realize that he was still grasping her hand, and he let go, blushing furiously.  
  
"It's okay," Ginny said before she could restrain herself. "I mean, you'll have to lead the way anyways, won't you?"  
  
"Yeah, I 'spose so." With that, he reclaimed her hand and started down the tunnel, Ginny comfortably letting him show the way through the dim light.  
  
A/N: Thanks to my reviewers, I updated faster than even I thought I would!  
  
*Review Box* Feed me! 


	3. Chapter Three

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, propaganda, etc.  
  
Eventually, Harry recognized the wood trap door that brought them to the cellar of Honeydukes and carefully pushed it open, opening his eyes slowly to let them adapt to the light of the room.  
  
"Wow," Ginny said, still astounded that the passage had been there all along without her knowing it. "If those idiot twin brothers of mine loved me at all they would have told me about this," she added, grinning wryly.  
  
"Oh, I dunno about that. They always talked about you like you were their favorite."  
  
"Well, I know I rank higher than Percy does at the moment. Actually, I always did but until the pompous git swallows his pride he's lower than the bottom of the list. In fact, you might as well bump him off the list altogether as far as I'm concerned.  
  
"Shhhh.. I think someone's coming," Harry whispered suddenly, ducking his head so it was hidden by a overlarge crate of chocolate sugar quills. Exactly at the same time they were hidden an old man appeared, muttering to himself.  
  
"'Go get more chocolate sugar quills, Jergus, be a good boy.' As though she owns the place and I'm HER employee.. eh I don't know how she got so full of herself. Bossing me around like I'm lower than her, oh I'd tell her what I think of her if I thought she wouldn't breath fire and burn me to a crisp..." The old mans mutterings faded as he approached the crate of sugarquills.  
  
Ginny felt goose bumps erupt on her arms as she attempted to make herself appear even smaller. She hardly noticed how hard she was clutching Harry's palm until she looked and saw the row of purplish crescent shapes where her fingernails had been. She could feel the old man's ragged breath as he reached over and opened the crate, could see the tips of his fingers peering over the edge... finally, the crate's lid was slammed back down and he walked away, the candy clutched in his weathered hands.  
  
"That was close," Harry whispered as they slipped into the main of the store, letting out the breath he'd been holding.  
  
"Yeah," Ginny agreed, as they let go of each other's hands. "Do you want to take a walk or something? I'm still feeling a little claustrophobic from that tunnel, and I know this great little canyon hardly anyone knows about."  
  
Harry nodded. "A walk sounds great- anywhere but Madam Puddifoot's sounds great actually... I've had enough pink frilly things to last me a lifetime."  
  
"Yeah, that place is usually for couples, anyway. And we're just here as friends,' Ginny said, wondering all the while WHY in the world she was saying anything when it had been feeling like an actual date for a minute there. *Trust me to make things awkward just when we were getting along,* she thought, cursing her big mouth.  
  
"Um, yeah. Friends. Right," Harry said, looking as though he was having trouble stringing two words together. "Um, right-"  
  
Harry stepped on a slab of ice previously covered with snow, and with a exclamation of surprise slipped backwards. Ginny stepped behind him in a brave but foolish attempt to catch him. Harry hit her with full force and they both landed, gasping, on the ground, Ginny pinned underneath him. Both of them began laughing hysterically, Ginny wriggled futilely to extract herself from underneath him but found she was too weak from laughter. Instead, she grabbed a handful of snow and shoved it in his face and hair, finally getting him to move.  
  
"Oh, you're going to pay for that one!" Harry yelled, grabbing an armful and thoroughly combining it into her carefully made hair. Ginny shrieked and pulled out her wand, sending a steady stream of snowballs slamming into him.  
  
"Ouch, okay you win!" he said, slumping to the ground. Ginny collapsed next to him, feeling the snow soak through all of her clothes.  
  
Harry looked at her. She was a mess; the snow had ruined her makeup- mascara was smudged around her eyes, and her hair was stuck in clumps of ice and snow. Even so, her cheeks were rosy and her eyes alight from excitement, and she seemed to glow with a smile bright and genuine. Perhaps she couldn't beat Cho Chang in the looks department, but she had something else that Cho just couldn't achieve- a sort of warmth that came from deep inside of her. Harry wanted to kiss her more than anything else in the world, but her words from earlier came back to hit him. "And we're just here as friends." The sentence stung as much as it did earlier, and the feeling returned that she didn't want to be more than that.  
  
"We'd better head back to Hogsmeade, it's getting late," he said quietly, glancing at his watch and felt a strange coldness in his stomach that was definitely not the weather.  
  
Ginny nodded and hoisted herself up. "Too bad we never made it to the canyon," she added, starting to walk. Before long they made it back, but something seemed different. The sky looked as though it were darkening before their very eyes, and the whole town seemed deserted. She carefully stepped up to a shop and pulled on the door.  
  
"Sealing charm," she whispered, because speaking felt strangely inappropriate in the hushed town.  
  
Harry tested another. "Same here." He tried pulling on the handle while calling for someone to let them in, but nobody answered. He felt the strange coldness in his stomach, and by the look on her face Ginny did too.  
  
"Ginny, something's wrong. Something's really wrong."  
  
*Review Box* I'm starving! Pleeeeease feed me! 


	4. Chapter Four

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, propaganda, etc.  
  
After checking as many buildings as they could manage, they were forced to face the bitter truth. They were locked out of the entire town, with no protection from whatever was coming. And Harry had a pretty good idea what it was.  
  
"Ginny," he spoke, still whispering. "I think its dementors."  
  
"I know," she said, shivering. Harry thought back to every romantic book he had read (which wasn't exactly a huge amount.) In all of them, when the girl was cold, the guy was supposed to drape a blanket or coat over her shoulders. The only jacket Harry had was the one he was wearing, and he supposed that draping a thin dripping-wet worn jacket that had once been his uncles was not exactly a wise move. Ginny shivered violently again, and a thought struck Harry instantly. 'And I call myself a wizard,' he thought, pulling out his wand and attempting to perform the complicated little flick Hermione had used to produce a stream of hot air. He must have done something wrong, because a second later the bottom hem of his jacket was on fire.  
  
"Harry! You idiot!" Ginny shrieked, pushing him into the snow and pulling out her wand simultaneously. "Refrecto Extingisho!"  
  
Harry felt the combined powers of the snow and charm extinguish the flame. Rolling on his back, he saw that a large portion of the front of his jacket had been burned off.  
  
"Thanks," he said, still feeling a bit shaky as he stood up. "Where did you learn that spell to put out fires, anyways?"  
  
"It's common knowledge in the Weasley household. Has been since the twins were born, I believe."  
  
"Oh," he said, still examining his jacket, which was emanating the faint odor of burnt rubber.  
  
"Was this what you were trying to do?" Ginny broke the silence, performing the flick Harry had been attempting. She deftly dried Harry from head to toe, and put her wand away in the pocket of her robes.  
  
"Uh," he said intelligently, wondering if putting the jacket over her shoulders would still work. He decided to try, and took it off, savoring the warmth of the shredded scrap of material before placing it on Ginny's shoulders.  
  
"Thanks Harry. That was sweet," she blushed and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, looking at the ground as she turned colors faster than a stoplight.  
  
"Uh," he repeated his new favorite word.  
  
"Well, maybe we should go over to my canyon. I have a feeling that if they are dementors they'll be coming straight through the town, and I don't know about you but I don't want to be here when they do," Ginny supplied. Harry nodded, and they walked towards the canyon together, both noticing the darkness of the sky and the veil of depression, which was rapidly covering them.  
  
Memories began flowing through Ginny's mind, Tom Riddle coming to her first. She could still see the handsome face smiling comfortingly through the window of her diary, could still feel the confusion when she had found blood all over her robes with no idea how it had gotten there- the fear that she had hurt someone while she was sleeping....... Without thinking she broke into a run, her heart pounding as she tried to keep ahead of the waves of horrible recollections which were threatening to overwhelm her. She heard Harry follow suit, and gradually the thoughts seemed to be more distant, and she could hear herself think about things other than her past. She finally felt like she could slow down, and she rested for a minute, gasping for breath as the wind bit into her flesh.  
  
Harry arrived a moment later. He was feeling slightly sick; the dementor's effects seemed ten times worse after witnessing the death of his godfather in the Department of Mysteries. He forced back the thoughts that were rising to the surface and instead focused on Ginny, who looked as bad as he felt.  
  
"Are you okay?" He asked worriedly. Ginny immediately felt selfish. Harry was probably reliving things ten times worse, and here she was acting like a baby while he was comforting her.  
  
"I'm fine, actually, just wanted to, you know, try to get ahead so I could hear myself think."  
  
"Yeah, I know what you mean." Looking around, he noticed where he was for the first time. "Is this your canyon? It's great."  
  
Ginny gave a small smile. "Yeah, I found it on my first trip here. I always thought that it was weird that nobody else was ever here, but I guess most normal people are out buying Dungbombs and Fizzing Whizbees while I'm exploring the great outdoors. Anyways, I guess there isn't anywhere else to go from here- students aren't allowed to cross the magic boundary on the other side of the canyon."  
  
"I don't think anyone would really blame us if it was to escape from dementors, do you?" Harry asked her.  
  
"No, I don't think you get what I mean. It's MAGIC, as in we can't cross it even if we need to," Ginny answered, sighing.  
  
"So that's it. This is as far as we can get."  
  
"Yep."  
  
A/N: Big huggles to all of my reviewers, I'm too lazy to write all your names down but I will at the end. (Which is coming soon!) If you leave a signed review I will read your story sooner or later as long as it's ships/subjects I can handle. Anyways, I love you guys and your reviews are what motivate me to update! 


	5. Chapter Five

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, propaganda, etc.  
  
After another awkward silence in which Ginny realized Harry didn't have a clue what to do, she decided to take matters into her own hands.  
  
"All right, I don't know how to make a bluebell flame without any starter, but I'll go gather some wood and you can light it since you are obviously very skilled in that department," she said in an authoritative voice, referring to the incident earlier.  
  
Harry blushed a bit as she left, which cheered her up. Maybe it was the fact that he was slowly but surely catching up to the millions of times she had blushed because of him in her first, second, third, and fourth years at school.  
  
"Accio wood, Accio wood, Accio wood!" she yelled, trying the spell she had been yearning to use since Harry's first task in his fourth year. Glancing around at the pieces of wood, she noted that none of the wood seemed to be moving. Except one. Hurtling towards her was a measly little stick about one and a half inches around, and she would have been pleased with her progress if it hadn't been flying through the air at such an amazing rate. She started to run, but it gained on her quickly and hit her sharply in on the behind with a loud WHACK. It fell to the ground limply, and she picked it up and carried it back to their "camping" spot, trying to conceal her own blush. Harry was smiling widely as he performed the "accio" charm easily, and probably would be laughing hysterically if it weren't for the presence of the dementors.  
  
"How about this," he smiled. "I won't say anything if you promise never to mention the fire thing again."  
  
"Deal," Ginny smiled, shaking his outstretched hand. She gathered the rest of the wood without magic, and they soon had a small fire cackling. They sat around it to shelter the tiny flame from the wind, both fighting internal battles against the evils of their minds.  
  
"Ginny," Harry finally said, rubbing his numb hands over the fire, "What do you see when the dementors come?" He had been wondering about that for a while now, and talking helped to distract him.  
  
Ginny looked at him inquisitively for a moment, her head cocked slightly to the side as she considered him.  
  
"I remember my second year, of course, that was probably one of the worse times of my life. I remember last year, when we all thought dad was going to die. I remember the Ministry of Magic, when everyone was getting hurt and I thought none of us were going to get through alive and sane. I remember......"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Well, I don't even know how this one got thrown in with the rest of them, because it's silly really, and it's not anything compared to thinking dad was going to die. It's strange, but I remember when you were just turned down by the girl you asked to the Yule Ball, and Ron said you could go with me...... you had this look on your face like you would much rather be with someone perfectly beautiful and popular like Cho, but you would take me if you had to and there was no one else. Really dumb thing to dwell on, actually. Nothing to make a big deal about."  
  
Harry felt a guilty twinge in his stomach. He had never thought that something as simple as a look could be in her worst memories. "Ginny, about that—"  
  
"Don't start. I was never angry with you, there's no need to apologize, like I said I was turning a little thing into a big deal. Besides, you hardly knew the real me back then, so there was no reason for you to want to go with me. What do you think about when they're close, anyways?"  
  
Harry blanched slightly, and Ginny felt almost guilty for asking.  
  
"It used to be that I'd just hear my parents screaming, but now there's a bunch of things that have sort of dimmed them out. I still hear them, but I also see the night in the graveyard with Cedric, and Sirius's dying. I remember everyone getting hurt at the Department of Mysteries, and remember knowing that it was me that made it happen," Harry said bitterly, glaring at the fire.  
  
"It wasn't your fault, you had know way of knowing—"  
  
"No way of knowing, eh? I guess I didn't tell you about the handy little two-way mirror Sirius gave me so I could contact him whenever I needed to. He was probably carrying it in his pocket when I left on those thestrals, all I had to do was pick it up and say his name...... none of this would have happened." His barrier was breaking, the carefully constructed wall he had made over the summer to hold in all of his feelings was about to crumble.  
  
Ginny reached over and wrapped her arms around him, letting her head rest on his shoulder as he held her around the waist. She cried silently, letting the tears stain his robes and soak through to his skin. She cried because he had been forced to grow up without a family to care for him. She cried because he had lost the person who had been the closest thing he'd had to a father. She cried for Lily and James, for Cedric, for Sirius. She cried in his place, because he was too strong to ever let go. They rocked each other gently back and forth as a flood of tears that had been brewing inside of both of them broke loose, and for a second she could forget where they were and what they were doing there, she could block everything out besides the bitter aching of her tears and the warmth of Harry's arm around her waist.  
  
But not for long. Over the lip of the canyon wall, a black shape silently glided, sending a wave of cold. Neither of them saw it, neither of them realized just how close it was. If they had, they might have been a little more prepared.  
  
A/N: That last page was amazingly hard to write for some reason, and I'm still not sure if I like the way it turned out. Oh well. The last chapter will be coming soon. 


	6. Chapter Six

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, propaganda, etc.  
  
A/N: That last chapter was driving me insane, so I lengthened a paragraph or two to make me feel better. Don't bother reading it over, just wanted to tell you. Why? Because I felt like it.  
  
Night fell as they shivered in the cold as Ginny's last tear slid from under a closed eyelid as she pulled herself away from Harry. The trees were no longer swaying; in fact they were completely still, as if frozen in time, not a single leaf daring to flutter to the ground. It was almost eerie to look at, so she instead concentrated on listening, trying to match up the calling of birds to their calls. A new realization struck her; there were no birds, no sounds to identify. She shuddered and tried to regain her composure. She was acting like a silly little girl again, and right now she couldn't afford to.  
  
"Harry, I'm going to go see if my stream is still here, I'm dying of thirst. I'll be back in a minute," she said softly.  
  
"No, you don't need to go alone, I'll come with you," he answered protectively, pulling himself up.  
  
"Don't be an idiot, you need to keep the fire from burning out. I'll be right back, I'm perfectly capable of walking fifteen feet on my own," she snapped in an irritated voice. Never mind that he could simply light another fire if that one went out, she had to prove that she didn't need protection all the time. Besides, she could think more clearly when Harry wasn't there to interfere with her emotions.  
  
"I'm coming to get you if you're not back in ten minutes."  
  
"Fine."  
  
Ginny whispered 'Lumos' and her wand tip ignited, sending a dim line of light over Harry's worried features. She turned away in order to stop herself from breaking down and letting him come, and began walking hesitantly in the direction she thought the stream was in.  
  
She began to quicken her pace, her heart beating an uneven rhythm as she wished she hadn't left the comfort of the fire and Harry. It seemed to be getting darker by the minute, and her wand wasn't nearly bright enough to puncture the icy chill that was suffocating her. She tried to ignore it, but it was too close, and the memories were blurring her vision. She stumbled over a rock and found her foot in icy water, but the fact that she had found the stream didn't register. She tripped blindly again; her robes were soaked through now. She had just pulled herself up, cold sweat breaking out on her brow and claustrophobia pressing against her when she felt something on her shoulder. A slimy, rotten hand that reeked of death and decay, it's jagged fingernails biting into her skin her numb skin.  
  
Ginny screamed.  
* * * Harry ran towards the sound, guilt and the frantic need to find Ginny plaguing him as he ran. Thorns pierced him through his already tattered robes, and Sirius flashed through his mind, his body falling in submission at Bellatrix Lestrange's curse. He kept running, he couldn't let the past ruin his future. Her voice was near now, her scream occupying every particle of his mind left empty of Sirius. His foot fell into water and he knew he was close, knew from the frigid cold and feeling of utter darkness. A few seconds later, he saw her. She was lying on her back, and a dementor was seconds away from claiming her soul.  
  
"Expecto Patronum!" He yelled, thinking of earlier that day with all his might. The feeble patronus was enough to frighten the dementor away for a second, but Prongs vanished too quickly to rid them of the other three. Freed from its hold, Ginny dragged herself towards Harry, her wand forgotten on a patch of frozen grass. Harry pulled her up, and she clung to him for support since her legs seemed to have lost the will to hold her up.  
  
"Come on, Harry, you can do it," she whispered. The four dementors were closing in on them in a tight circle, and it was becoming tighter every second they lost.  
  
"I'm sorry, Ginny, I can't find anything happy enough, I know it's there, I just can't think of it," he said wretchedly, trying to remember something, anything that would save them.  
  
"Harry, think of Ron and Hermione. Think of Mum and Dad, and Fred and George, and Charlie and Bill. Try to remember."  
  
"I can't picture their faces, nothing's making sense. I can't think of anything besides what's happening right now."  
  
"Than think of now," she said, and without thinking about it kissed him softly on the lips, laying her hand on his wand arm as she pulled away. Something surged through Harry's body, a feeling he couldn't place, removing the cold with deep warmth that seeped through his fingertips and into his wand.  
  
"Expecto Patronum!" He yelled as a shape flew from his wand. Both Harry and Ginny covered their eyes with their hands as its brightness blinded them, and by the time they could open them they found no trace of the dementors, and the patronus was already galloping away. Harry shaded his eyes and tried to make out the shape. It looked like Prongs, but there was something different about it.  
  
"What shape does your patronus take?" Harry asked, realizing what it was that was different.  
  
"Eagle," Ginny breathed. They stood together, wand arms still entwined, as the patronus, half stag half eagle, rose gracefully into the suddenly warm night air.  
  
A/N: Well, I'm finished! Again, I'm not sure if I like the ending but I'll tweak it a bit if I have to. And here's the moment we've all been waiting for; review notes! You'd think I was insane from how excited I get from 19 reviews or so, but if you heard me brag you'd know just how much every last one means to me, even if it just says "Good."  
  
Anyhoo-  
  
Ami-gryffindor89: Thanks so much! I read one of your reviews and it made me so happy I went straight into Microsoft word to write another chapter.  
  
Sarahamanda: Yay! You've reviewed every single chapter so far! Makes me so excited to see those reviews...  
  
Maria: Glad you wanted more, hope this is okay.  
  
KrystynAngelofLight: Thank you! I keep forgetting to read your stories, but they look great,  
  
Dementorchic: Thanks for reviewing!  
  
Melindaleo: I started reading your story, I'm lovin' it! The kissing thing was partly my idea and partly your review, either way both of your reviews were a great help.  
  
GinnyGirl24289: I know whatcha mean, Ginny's da bomb!  
  
Mep: I love it when people write good reviews in caps! 


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